


There but for Grace go I

by AutumnHobbit



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman-All Media Types, The Punisher (tv)
Genre: Angst, Bruce Wayne is a Guilty Father, Character Study-ish, Child Death, Dick is a Cop, Father-son angst, Frank Castle is an Angry Broken Man, Gen, Human Trafficking, Jason Todd is an Incorrigible Child, Language, Murder, Officer Grayson, Philosophizing, Sort-of Canon-Compliant with Punisher S2, Surgery, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 09:14:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17805251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnHobbit/pseuds/AutumnHobbit
Summary: Frank Castle comes to Gotham on the trail of some human traffickers who picked the wrong city. Imagine his surprise to find he isn’t the only one out for their blood. When things turn sour he decides to get involved, which leads to a lot of unexpected drama.And he thought New York’s costumed paraders were bad.





	There but for Grace go I

**Author's Note:**

> This is a completely self-indulgent crossover because I love the heck out of Frank Castle and him meeting Jason needed to happen. And Bruce, for that matter.
> 
> Okay I know it happens in comics but I wanted to go Netflixverse with it, so I did. 
> 
> I haven’t seen Punisher S2 yet but I have a vague understanding of the overall plot. The majority of this was written before it was released, but it still takes place post S1 and 2.

Even just from coming down the interstate, Frank could tell that Gotham was even more of a shithole than New York, if that was even possible. He’d always hated Jersey. His mom and dad had dragged him a couple times for family reunions and picnics, and he’d responded by being a whiny little bitch right back the whole time. If he’d been a few years younger and a whole lot stupider, he might actually have pulled some cliche shit like graffiti or shoplifting, but as it was he took delight in tormenting the bunch of respectable relatives until such time as his parents gave up and dragged them home.

That had been a lifetime ago, though. Before Maria, before either of the kids, before the war, before any of it. Now, no personal feelings towards it mattered. Business, and business alone brought him to Gotham, and as soon as he had approximately six more bodies in the ground, he was hightailing it back to the city.

Human traffickers were about the worst of humanity as far as Frank was concerned, and these ones had kidnapped a girl right in his turf. A young one, too. Not even thirteen yet. No way in hell was that standing. There were other girls, but that one had brought his attention to it. Her parents didn’t deserve to have her back; deadbeats let her wander and were drunk half the time, didn’t even notice she was missing for a few days. But she didn’t deserve to live or die in captivity. Frank would free her if she was alive, and avenge her if she wasn’t. 

He pulled his van into an exit ramp and followed it down into a dilapidated section of the town. Yellow-tinged smog hung right above the streetlights, abandoned buildings stood with weeds growing through the cement, the roads were littered with potholes, empty cars, and occasional fires flickering dimly in the night. Frank wrinkled his nose in disgust and drove on. 

First step was to figure out where exactly the shitbags had gone. Luckily, his stolen police transmitter made that fairly easy. He turned the volume up and listened as he drove, and within a half-hour caught a mention of a 911 call about hearing people in an abandoned construction site in the Narrows. Further listening connected a large, unmarked delivery truck that had sped past a checkpoint on the way there. Frank flicked on his turn signal and steered into one of the one-way roads, tooling along in the direction of the Narrows. 

He pulled the van off to park it on the side of the road a mile from the warehouse, three-quarters of the way around the block so it would be harder to find. He pulled the key from the ignition and took a breath, pushing his shoulders back against the seat and closing his eyes for a moment.

Then he climbed back over the seats and dragged out the crate filled with the guns and ammo he had left from the stash he and David had stolen, and began methodically loading cartridges.

One side-arm, one hand-held, and one two-handed were all he usually needed. There weren’t many of these fucks, but you came prepared or you didn’t come. So he added one knife in his belt and one in his boot, and another gun in a lower pocket on his calf. 

With that, he pulled his trench coat on to cover the body armor, and climbed out of the van, rolling the door shut with a dull thud and locking it behind him. 

It wasn’t much of a hike to the construction site, but he was on guard, anyway. Probably shouldn’t have bothered. There was no one to be seen on the streets. Just as well. He didn’t want to have to herd any scared civilians away so he could do what he had to.

There was a tall, wire fence surrounding the site. Three layers of barbed wire ringed the top. Frank rolled his eyes and pulled a pair of thick kevlar gloves from the pocket of his coat, pulling them on with some difficulty over calloused fingers, and grabbed hold of the fence, hauling himself up.

No noises responded to the jangling as he climbed. It was uncannily quiet, for a place that was supposed to be teeming with shitbags.

He didn’t like it. Something was up. As soon as he dropped onto his feet on the other side of the fence, he drew his G36 and held it at the ready as he crept toward the building. There was still not a sound on the air.

He found a window at just above eye level on the north side of the main warehouse and hoisted himself up. The idiots had lights on inside. A group of seventeen men were huddled around in a knot amongst the equipment and crates. He could see the girl, the one from Hell’s Kitchen, curled up inside a massive rusted tire frame that had been hollowed out for “living space.” His blood boiled at the sight of her, slouched back in a reclined position that was too tense to be the exhausted disinterest she was trying to project. She was wearing a bright pink tee shirt and dirty jeans with red flowers on them. Her eyes were open, and fixed in his direction. But she wasn’t looking at him.

No, she was staring at the sprawled body of one of the sentries in the shadows just beyond the view of the knot of men. He was lying in a pool of blood, the deep, dark red staining his dirty, grey hoodie. His throat had been silently and expertly slit. 

Frank looked up and just caught sight of the glint of a scope before the bullets started flying. 

The three men nearest to the girl dropped in rapid succession, one clutching a suddenly-spraying neck, one flailing from a snapped collarbone, and one dropping with a perfect hole blown right through his skull. The remaining fourteen, and more swarming from out of the recesses, were clumsily yanking their guns out and firing desperately in every direction.

The girl scrambled backwards on her hands like a crab, huddled back into her tire, as far as she could get. It wouldn’t be enough to save her if a bullet ricocheted. And the other women were panicking, not having noticed what she had. 

Frank dropped back to the ground and bolted for the nearest door, yanking his G36 back out and jamming a clip in. He bashed the door in with his shoulder and ducked low as he ran, firing at the other men still too close to the girl for comfort. He deviated to take out one who had grabbed one of the other women in an attempt to use her as a human shield. The grunt sagged away from her with a choke when Frank shot him through the throat without ever touching her. She was shrieking and screaming hysterically, covered with blood. That was okay. She’d live to get over it. 

He was wary of being shot at by whoever else was apparently after the gang’s asses, but his display towards the traffickers hadn’t gone unnoticed, and no bullets were flung in his direction. They kept ringing out though; methodically, one by one, and bodies kept dropping. 

Frank hated to admit it, but he was impressed. It was a shame he’d probably never meet this guy. He’d like to shake his hand. 

Though, now that he realized, the chances of them coming face-to-face were rising. The shots were getting closer and closer in range as they went on, and he realized whoever-it-was was moving, making their way down. A quick glance up revealed a catwalk above the floor, and machinery tall enough to be within jumping distance. 

A panicked, shrill scream that abruptly choked off cut into his thoughts like a knife, and he refocused, cursing himself. One of the higher-ups was there, with his gun to the girl’s head. “Y-you! You want the girl! You want her, right?” He yelled hysterically. “Punisher, right? You want her? You come get her or I kill her! If you come, I give her to ya’!” 

Frank stood, breathing heavy for a moment. His hands tightened on his empty G36. Then he threw it on the concrete floor with a clatter. 

The grunt’s head whipped to the side. He spun, dragging the girl by her neck, which was trapped inside his locked forearm. “You comin’ out?!” He screamed again. He turned the gun from her head to point it into the darkness. Stupid move, but good for Frank. Didn’t seem to help the kid much, though. Her face was tinged purple and streaked with tears. He was seething at the sight of her, but he walked forward, and put his hands behind his head. 

“I’m unarmed.” He said, as he stepped out into the light. The thug’s fist shook. The gun’s aim was going everywhere. “I’m unarmed.” It was a complete lie, but he didn’t need to know that. 

The poor bastard stared, and went paler than a bleached pillowcase. He laughed, nearly without air. “P-Punisher, eh? Big bad Punisher, coming to try and kill me?”

“Pfft.  _ Try _ .” Frank scoffed mockingly, under his breath. 

“You not gonna kill me, Castle.” The grunt was almost giggling. He still hadn’t released the girl, and she was clawing feebly at his arm now. “I’m gonna live, because I have her. You can’t kill me without hurtin her.” He straightened triumphantly.

A Beretta leveled six inches from the bastard’s head. The resulting blast blew the side of the guy’s head out. The gloved hand around the gun lowered it evenly. “No?” A grating voice lilted sardonically.

The girl scrambled out of the now-limp arm as the body pitched over, and she fell on the floor from the momentum and panic, curling over herself and heaving with a child’s high sobs. 

The other guy stepped toward her without a second’s hesitation, and Frank raked him over from head to foot. A blood-red helmet, looked to be made of some sort of industrial-grade plastic or kevlar. A leather jacket over heavy body armor. Thick cargo pants and boots, covering every inch of the tall, broad body. Held up confidently and threateningly, shoulders back, spine straight. At least three concealed firearms on his person. 

He went down on one knee next to the girl. “Hey,” he said, real gentle, even through the voice filter he clearly had in that get-up. “Did they hurt you?”

She shook her head without looking at him, still sobbing.

“Good. That’s good.” The other guy said, glancing around. “Listen, I called the police for you. You need to go out there, towards the street and find cover. When they get there, you go and you ask for Jim Gordon, or Dick Grayson, you got that? Commissioner Jim Gordon or Officer Grayson, and don’t stop bitching till they take you to one of them. You can trust them. They’ll make sure you’re safe, I swear to you. And if they put you with someone who isn’t safe, you call them. Got that?” 

She nodded, still crying, but she shoved her fists up to her eyes and scrubbed them, and pushed herself up off the floor. Frank thought of his Lisa wrestling with Frank Jr., of the time he tried to kick at her and she grabbed his leg and pulled him down with it. He’d been so proud, he hadn’t stopped crowing about it for months. 

She started to run off, and the other guy was drawing a fresh handgun in prep when a shot rang out and he was dropping to the floor, himself. 

Frank’s hand went to his own concealed gun while the girl leaped onto the floor again only about twenty feet away, covering her head. His eye found a straggler hiding behind one of the machines, leaning up to fire and ducking back down instantly. When he saw Frank was shooting at him, he paled and pushed himself off, running. There was too much shit in the way to get a clear shot at him. 

Frank hated to run off and leave the guy here defenseless, but he’d kept count, and out of the twenty-three guys he’d seen at once, this was number nineteen. He’d have to chance that the others had run off like the pansy-ass cowards they were. He could hear sirens coming this way already. 

He paused next to the girl, and gently said, “Sweetheart, you need to get up.” He very lightly touched her shoulder, and she raised her head and gazed around warily. She looked up at him and paled very slightly, but accepted his hand up. “You need to go do what he said. I’ve got those pieces of shit. You go. I’ll cover you the whole way.” 

She nodded and whispered a shaking “thank you” as she turned and ran off as fast as her short legs would carry her. Frank, as promised, ran after her, gun at the ready.

He caught sight of the dipshit who’d shot the guy and ran off as the girl was scrambling through a tear in the fence. He dropped him with one shot. 

With that settled, he turned and hightailed it back into the warehouse. The sirens were piercingly loud now, and the red-and-blue lights were dancing across the buildings surrounding them.

The warehouse was still inside, and Frank grimly crossed the floor to where the guy was still lying sprawled and boneless on the concrete. He took a knee beside him and confirmed his fears. There was a bullet hole in his helmet, just above his temple. By some ridiculous chance, the bullet had hit the same spot as a previous dent from another bullet, the combined hit enough to break through. Gently turning his head enough to get the light also confirmed there was an entry wound. It hadn’t grazed him. It had gone in.

It was a bit hard to check for a pulse, because his jacket and helmet nearly completely covered his neck, but Frank managed to jam a finger in and feel around, and surprisingly enough, the poor bastard still had a heartbeat. A rapid one, which wasn’t good, but one nonetheless. Frank was even more impressed.

He was also in a bit of a fucking pickle. The cops were here, the women were safe, the shitbags were dead, but this guy was still here, and alive. And if Frank knew anything about the vigilante-type—which he did, being one—they didn’t like cops very much. Or hospitals, for that matter. Hell, he still remembered David’s reluctance to promise he wouldn’t get Madani or any official help until all three of them were in the ground together, him and Agent Orange….and Bill.

He hadn’t made up his mind to leave Bill alive until the moment he saw the fear in what was left of his eyes. But when he did, the decision was made instantly.

Similar to now, actually. This was probably how David was thinking. Frank was no doctor—he could handle himself around blood and guts, sure, but he ripped them apart and wasn’t so great at the whole ‘putting back together’ part. He definitely was not qualified to dig into anyone’s fuckin’ skull and root around for a bullet. But he was a damn good Marine, and he wasn’t fuckin’ about to leave the guy to be dragged off by the cops. So he tore a piece of gauze from the wad inside a plastic baggie in one of the pockets of his jacket—emergency supplies—and carefully, deftly shoved it up into the hole in the helmet, plugging the flow of blood up. Unsurprisingly, the guy didn’t move a bit. 

Then he gingerly dug his hands under the guy’s arms and hauled him up, with the intention of pulling him into a fireman’s carry—until he realized exactly how fuckin’ heavy he was. Deciding he didn’t have time to worry about it, he carefully but quickly dragged him backwards towards another abandoned employee exit, dragging the guy’s legs along the floor as he went. It made a squeaking sound that would be comical in any other context. 

He’d gotten out of the factory floor and was finally close to getting out, dodging the bodies of the traffickers the whole way, when someone snapped, “Hey! Stop!” Frank stifled an exasperated sigh and looked up, and promptly rolled his eyes with a muttered curse. A single police officer, young enough that he looked barely capable of growing a beard, was standing twenty feet away, handgun pointed straight at Frank. He was pale, but his jaw was set. Frank hated the brave ones.

“Listen, kid,” he said warningly, making eye contact. He scoffed a bit, quietly. “Lemme guess,  _ Grayson _ , is it?” The cop paled further, but held his stance. “You don’t wanna do this. Walk away.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” the cop bit out. His grip on the gun was controlled and precise, practiced, but there was a frantic terror in his eyes. But he wasn’t even looking at Frank. His gaze was fixed on the guy hanging limply in Frank’s grasp. “That’s my  _ brother _ .” 

Frank blinked in surprise, eyeing the cop closer. He was a good bit shorter than the limp figure he was holding up, and looked to be quite a bit lighter, too. Still clearly-defined muscles, but more the invisible type from how long he’d had them. Dark hair fell too-long, nearly in his eyes, which were bright blue. But it was his expression that convinced him. He looked like he was about to break down. He looked like if he weren’t holding a gun he would charge him and grab the guy out of his hands as fast as humanly possible. The pain and fear was palpable. Frank knew that look. He’d worn it himself. He knew how it felt.

The cop could easily have been lying. But he wasn’t. 

“Okay.” Frank said, level. “Okay. I believe you.” 

The cop—Grayson—stepped closer, the gun still raised. Frank raised his voice and went on. “You listen to me now, huh? I’d be glad to put my hands up for you if I weren’t busy holding your brother here up. You ask that little girl, she’ll tell you, I had nothing to do with this shit. Not any of it, you hear me? I came here for these bastards.”

“Sure.” Grayson said, voice cracking dangerously. He took another step closer. “Don’t give a fuck.” 

“Listen, I’m like him.” Frank said, cursing interiorly as he gritted his teeth. The limp body in his arms shifted ever so slightly every now and again with faint breaths, and he was keenly aware. “I’m one of those vigilante-types, alright? I’m from New York. That little girl? They took her right out of my neighborhood. I followed them here to save her or make ‘em pay. He beat me to it. I don’t wanna hurt him. I know how this thing goes. I wanted to get him away from the cops, and I want to get him helped. You get me?” 

“Put him down.” Grayson took two strides closer. 

“Kid, I—“

“Put him down,  _ now.”  _

“Okay.” Frank gave in, shaking his head. “Okay.” And he did it, too, and not the asshole way he could’ve. He eased the guy down very gently onto the concrete, taking special care with his head. He backed up and raised his hands, displaying that they were empty. 

Grayson barely spared a glance to verify that he did so before shoving his gun into its hip holster as he crossed the distance and dropped to one knee next to the body. “Jason,” he choked out, voice wrecked, as he cupped the red helmet between his hands, cautiously tipped his head to the side.  _ “Shit, _ Jase,” he hissed the instant he saw the bullet wound, and shoved one wrist against his mouth, stifling a mix between a gag and a sob. 

“His pulse is thready but there,” Frank said, lower than he meant to. “He’s got a chance but that window closes with time. You got someplace you can take him?”

“I uh—“ Grayson’s breath was rattling with tears and panic, but he felt around for something in his jacket. “Yeah.”

“You got a ride that’s not a cop car?” Frank asked skeptically, and Grayson swore under his breath. “Yeah, but I…” He fumbled in his jacket again. After a moment he said, “It’s on its way. We need to get him out of here. Towards the south side of the plot.”

“Right.” Frank stepped forward and waited as the kid carefully eased his unconscious brother up to a half-sitting position and pulled his arm around his shoulder. Slowly, cautiously, Frank ducked down and repeated the pose under the other arm. Grayson didn’t snap at him or attempt to stop him. Together they got the guy—Jason—between them, only dragging his toes as they hurried towards the door. Another shot rang out as they were going, pinged clumsily off the wall ahead of them, and Frank looked back to see a shaking, half-dead one of the traffickers, holding a gun in a hand that was blood-drenched and weaving all over the place. He heard Grayson huff in frustration and draw his gun. With a single shot he’d hit the weapon and sent the thug back to the floor, screaming faintly. “B’s going to kill me,” Grayson muttered under his breath, shoving the gun back in his holster. 

They stepped out into the muggy air and hurried towards the fenceline. Frank could hear the sirens and shouts from the front of the building. He could also hear an engine roaring from a different direction, coming closer. 

A hulking mass of an armored black car was zooming around the block, and as it turned a corner quickly, one of the traffickers who’d run had to jump out of its way. The car screeched to a halt, and the trafficker, only about a foot or two away, froze for an instant when he saw them coming, and then reached for his gun. 

Frank started to paw for his own, but Grayson, with a frustrated noise, slipped out from beneath Jason, leaving Frank supporting his weight, and ran at the thug. About a foot away from him, he leapt into the air freehanded, scissored his legs around the thug’s neck, used his own momentum to tumble the guy to the ground, and jabbed him on the way down with a weapon he’d pulled from somewhere in his jacket. A crackle of electricity accompanied the motion, and when the thug fell, he lay still, clothes sizzling. Grayson tucked and rolled and came up on his feet. 

“Fuckin’ unbelievable.” Frank muttered in disbelief. “You’re a cop  _ and—“ _ He shook his head. “I’m not sure if that’s brilliant or stupid.”

“It has its moments,” Grayson responded flippantly, slightly out of breath. He shoved the stick he’d used back into his jacket. He pulled a small clicker out in its place and with a flick of the button, the reinforced door of the car was opening. He didn’t pause, ducked back beneath Jason and Frank was forced to follow him as he hauled the limp form toward the open door and up onto the seat as carefully as he could, gently easing his head down and strapping him in. He shut the door securely and then grabbed for the driver’s side door and jumped behind the wheel. 

There was a split second where Frank hesitated. He’d gotten the guy help. Grayson’d haul him off somewhere to treat him. He’d pull through or he wouldn’t. It made no real difference to Frank. 

But then he heard the cops shouting in the building behind him, and with a muttered curse, he weaved around the car and climbed shotgun, slamming the door securely behind him. Grayson jammed his foot on the gas and the car roared forward, straight through the fence. They skidded onto a street and straightened, covering a mile rapidly before sliding up an exit ramp.

Frank shot an unimpressed look at Grayson. “You use highways with this thing?”

“Faster,” Grayson said shortly, not taking his eyes from the road, and Frank cast a glance back at Jason sprawled across the backseat. His head was lolling faintly and the gauze in the hole in his helmet was dark red and dripping. 

“Yeah,” he mumbled, turning back into his seat. “Good idea.”

___

Dick was about to lose his mind. He drove like a madman because he was one right now. He knew it was against protocol to bring anyone—let alone a complete fucking stranger loaded for bear—into the Cave, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. 

Repeatedly, sickeningly, mockingly, his brain replayed every second of the last half-hour, even as he took curves and corners at dangerous speeds. 

“Dick, we just got a 911 call in the Narrows about that trafficking den we got wind of. In the old Westhouse construction site. Caller said the women are on the streets and there’re shots being fired. We’re headed out now.”

Jim ran off a split second after he finished quickly filling him in, and Dick, swallowing his nerves, stood up from his desk and grabbed his jacket, pulling it on as he sprinted after him. He knew what Jim didn’t—Jason had been on this gang for months, but they’d moved so quickly and quietly he’d never been able to catch significant numbers of them at once.  _ Don’t do anything stupid tonight, Jay, please, _ he prayed to no one as he got into his car and revved it, since Jason couldn’t hear him and probably wouldn’t listen if he could.

He pulled his car to a stop at the end of the block from the others’ position near the gate; he’d seen a few of the women running about in a panicked cluster near the peddler’s mall across the street. He climbed out, gun still holstered, and pulled out his badge as he approached.

“I’m Officer Dick Grayson with the GCPD. Is anyone hurt? Can you tell me what’s going on here?” He addressed at large. One woman, maybe in her late twenties, was slumped against the brick facing of the store, sitting on the concrete, hands hanging limply between her knees and head hung, staring. Another was sobbing uncontrollably against the window, covered in blood. He moved toward her with concern, but froze and barely restrained himself from physically lashing out by instinct when a small hand grasped his sleeve and tugged hard and repeatedly. He barely had time to glance down and catch a glimpse of huge brown eyes beneath a curtain of tangled black bangs before the teenaged girl gasped, “Hood. The Hood. You have to help him.”

Dick’s stomach dropped into his shoes. He met her eyes. “What do you mean?” He said urgently.

“He saved me. Told me to come find you. Said you were safe and I could trust you. Told me to run and they shot him. He didn’t get up.”

Dick’s heart hammered against his ribs.  _ Jason. Jason. Hell, Jason. _ “Don’t worry, I’ll get him and take him somewhere safe, okay?” He hurriedly promised the girl. He pointed towards Jim. “The older man there, with the red hair? That’s the Commissioner. If you go to him, you’re safe.”

“Okay.” She nodded seriously and ran off across the street. Dick pelted after her and leapt to scale the fence. He dropped onto his feet and ran into the warehouse. He pulled his pistol from its holster.

He entered the warehouse cautiously. He’d heard more shots firing as he came closer, but upon entering, the building was quiet. Bodies lay scattered across the floor and he nearly tripped over a corpse with a slit throat, and he winced. He’d seen the photos of Damian’s victims. He knew an al Ghul tactic when he saw it. Bruce wouldn’t be happy. 

Bruce wouldn’t be happy, anyway. Jason was tough. A shot that had downed him…

He froze when he saw his brother. He was limp like a ragdoll, being dragged across the floor by his underarms. By a tall, scruffy man in a long black jacket with the bulky lumps of guns tucked into it. 

His own gun was raised before he could think. 

Jason was all he could look at. His younger brother was still and loose in a way that made fear pulse in his neck. 

The car was roaring haphazardly down the ramp into the Cave. The gruff man in the passenger seat had a silent eyebrow raised. Dick ignored him and pressed on.

They were finally,  _ finally _ climbing up the ramp and he stopped them in the usual parking space. Alfred was outside, and clearly startled by their sudden appearance. He was starting to come closer just as Dick was tearing his seatbelt off and nearly falling out of the car in his haste.

“Master Dick—“ Alfred began in surprise when Dick bolted past him, but his face faded into a threatening neutrality when the other guy climbed out of the front passenger seat. “Who is this?”

“Helped me get Jason out,” Dick said over his shoulder as he ripped the back door open. 

Alfred paled at the sight of the bottom of Jason’s boots in the car door and pivoted to grab a gurney. Dick climbed in and got an arm up beneath Jason’s shoulders, and the stranger once again silently approached and took his feet, guiding them out of the car. Alfred returned and hurriedly pushed the head of the gurney against the car so that the two of them could lay Jason onto it as they unloaded him. 

“What are his injuries?” Alfred asked, standing beside the gurney with his hands firmly on the handles.

“Gunshot wound to the head.” Dick choked out, unable to look at either Alfred or Jason, as the former sharply inhaled and the latter lay boneless in the gurney. 

“My guess is a 9x19 millimeter,” the stranger spoke up. “Moderate range shot, near his temple.”

Alfred breathed a very British-sounding curse and pivoted from the gurney, leaving Dick to push it towards the medbay. “We need expertise beyond my capabilities for this.” 

Dick ran on toward the medbay, and the stranger ambled behind him, deceptively casual, hands in the pockets of that beat-up trench coat. Dick ignored him, but he was hyper-aware of his presence, sharp eyes prickling against the back of his neck. 

He slid the gurney and locked it into place against one wall, and set to work. A knife from their prep kit sliced through Jason’s reinforced kevlar body armor—once he’d moved his little brother’s beloved leather jacket—and he stuck a heart monitor node to one of the sticky pads and pressed it down to connect it, switching on the monitor beside the bed. It started beeping, and he checked the readings quickly. His heartbeat was relatively steady, but his blood pressure had dropped enough to be worrying. 

“Don’t touch the helmet,” the stranger said gruffly, from behind his shoulder, and Dick, restraining himself from jumping, nodded. “I know,” he huffed. 

They couldn’t put Jason on oxygen without disturbing the helmet, and that had the potential to cause a hemorrhage that could put him into shock—if he wasn’t already—and likely kill him. His oxygen levels were a bit low, as it was, but that wasn’t too concerning with his unconsciousness. 

He forced his hands into fists to keep them from trembling. He took a step back, out of reach. They had to wait until Dr. Thompkins came to do anything more, and hope that Jason didn’t suddenly take a turn for the worse and die in that amount of time. He seemed stable enough—he  _ was _ stable enough—but Dick couldn’t bring himself to tear his gaze from the monitors, for fear that if he looked away they’d tank and start screeching and Jason would be a corpse again. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen him.

Gritting his teeth, he turned to the stranger, who was still standing with his hands in his pockets, watching the monitors with narrowed eyes. “Name.” He demanded, very near a growl. 

The stranger eyed him, amused. It just pissed Dick off even more, and his thread of patience was very short at the moment. “You know mine, so I know yours.”

There was still a hint of a smug grin playing around the edges of the man’s mouth, but with a faint shrug and a display of empty hands, as if to further reassure him he wasn’t fingering a weapon, he said, “Frank Castle.”

Dick’s eyebrows shot up. He knew who this guy was. He’d read about it in the news, seen the files, heard from a transplant cop from New York who’d moved to Gotham after the initial Punisher incident. A deep police coverup involving the murder of his wife and kids in a botched drug sting. An even deeper military coverup of a highly-illegal death squad and their drug trade. A long, horrifically bloody trail of bodies following the ladder up to an undersecretary. 

And the one-man killing machine was standing in the Cave with at least three guns on his person, feet away from his helpless and possibly-dying little brother. 

“We don’t allow guns in the Cave,” he said, a little shortly. 

Castle laughed. Actually laughed. It was a surprisingly contagious laugh, and if Dick weren’t seconds from flipping his lid, he might have been tempted to crack up, too. “Kid, I would like to see you try and take ‘em.” He chuckled, rubbing a dirty hand over his mouth. “I’ve been short on some good entertainment, lately.” 

“I could call Commissioner Gordon right now on my personal phone.” Dick said, unamused. “I could tell him exactly who you are and where you are.”

“And then you’d have the suits swarming your precious hideout and you’d have a hell of a lot more problems than just me,” Castle said easily, still smirking. “And that’s before you tried to restrain me or some shit. I, meanwhile, could kill you, your brother, and your old friend back there without breaking a sweat, and drive out of here with some fancy tech to play with in New York for a month or so. But I don’t feel like pulling any of that shit right now, so I won’t. Don’t play with my moods, though.”

Dick had tensed up more and more throughout that monologue, and now he was almost sure he wouldn’t be able to pull his hand out of a fist for quite a while. Castle must have seen him faintly quivering with barely-restrained violence, because he softened his tone a bit and the smile vanished. “Look, kid. I don’t hurt people that don’t deserve it. Yeah, I know who you are. Think it’s pretty easy by looking around to tell who all of you are, yeah? You may be rich putzes, but you ain’t scum like I know ‘em. I’m not a danger to any of you unless you make me one, and that brother of yours ain’t a danger to anything right now. I’ll leave if you want me out. But it seems like you could use someone like me right now, huh? If I walk away I’m a risk to you. Right here, you know what I’m doin. That’s all I got to say.”

Dick stood silently, breathing fast but steady. Then he raised his chin and said, “Unload them.”

Shaking his head, Frank sighed. “Alright, kid.” He mumbled, pulling one of the guns from beneath his jacket and clicking the cartridge loose. “You win.” 

The butler returned quickly. “Doctor Thompkins is en route to the Cave as we speak,” he addressed the two men. “In the meantime, Master Richard, Commissioner Gordon has been calling me when he could not reach you. He was concerned that you vanished from the crime scene, but assures me that he has covered for your absence.”

“Shit,” Dick hissed, running a hand over his face. “I completely forgot. I’ll call Jim and fill him in real quick.” He paused, then glanced quickly at Jason’s prone form, and then at Frank. “...Al?”

“I shall remain here until the doctor arrives, young sir,” Alfred said firmly, stepping into the room and taking a certain stance beside Jason’s gurney. 

“Thanks,” Dick breathed. He turned away with a bit of trepidation. Alfred could handle himself as well as any of them, but if Castle hurt him or Jason in any way, Dick would not be gentle. 

Frank glanced at Alfred with open curiosity. “You get paid enough for this shit?” He asked conversationally.

“I’m more of a volunteer lately.” Alfred replied smoothly. 

“Ooh boy.” Frank leaned back against the wall, folded his arms. “Who taught him to shoot?” He nodded at the patient.

Alfred quirked an eyebrow. “Beg your pardon?”

“He was breaking skulls when I came in. Dropping traffickers left and right. Killing ‘em without touching civilians only a few feet away. You don’t just do that shit, you gotta learn. Even with natural talent.”

The butler’s expression was warring between pain and disgust and pride and sorrow. “When he was still a lad, I taught him,” he admitted quietly, as if it were shameful. “Not to the extent you describe, but how to handle them safely and to maintain them. How to be accurate if the need arises. The master is…..not overly-fond of firearms.” 

Frank scoffed a little bit. “Yeah, I’ll bet he’s not,” he muttered. 

“Pennyworth?” A rough, small voice asked, and the two startled as a young boy stepped closer. He was barefooted, wearing a pair of black pajama pants and a baggy white t-shirt that hung halfway off one shoulder. His brown eyes were hazy with sleep, but they sharpened as he stiffened at the sight of the gurney and inhaled sharply. “What has—“

“Master Damian,” the butler hurried to the boy’s side. “Master Jason was shot in a skirmish with human traffickers only forty minutes ago. Doctor Thompkins is coming to operate soon. It’s best if you wait upstairs with Master Tim.”

The boy was still staring at the figure in the gurney. He suddenly caught sight of Frank out of the corner of his eye and his gaze snapped to the stranger instead, suspicion and shock and threat warring there. “How did—he—“

“I’m sorry, sir, but I must insist you go back upstairs. Surgical theater is no place for a young man, especially at this hour of the night.” With a gentle arm around the boy’s shoulder, the butler guided him towards the stairs. “If you could please tell Master Timothy what has occurred—“

“Yes, Pennyworth,” the boy said in a small voice, stepping back up the stairs as if they were a mountain he was attempting to climb in a blizzard. He turned his head back suddenly, worry in his face. “Has Father been told?”

The butler’s face pinched. “No. Master Bruce’s communications have been disconnected for an hour of espionage.”

With a nod, the child went back to climbing and soon vanished upstairs. Frank arched an eyebrow and shrugged, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. 

A car came speeding into the cave and screeched to a stop. An older woman climbed hurriedly out of the driver’s seat and ran across the metal grate towards them. “How’re his vitals?” She called as she came.

“A bit low, but so far steady,” Alfred informed her, as he stepped closer to Jason, himself. “We have not yet touched the wound.”

“Good.” The doctor said breathlessly, pulling to a stop beside the gurney and checking pulse points while quickly assessing the injury. “I want an MRI before anything. Let’s make sure we know what we’re dealing with. Shit—“ she suddenly hissed, glancing up. “Is the bullet steel?”

“I-I don’t know,” Dick said hurriedly, stressed. “He’d already been shot when I got there.”

Leslie swore quietly. “If it is, we’d better not put him in an MRI. And if we’re not sure, we’d better not put him in an MRI. I assume your CT scanner is in working order?”

“Yes ma’am,” Alfred replied, already hurrying off to prep the machine. 

“The MRI would be more accurate, but if it’s a steel bullet, we could accidentally kill him,” Leslie told Dick, frustrated. 

“Wait a sec,” Frank grunted, feeling along his body armor beneath his jacket. The doctor glanced at him for the first time, eyes narrow behind her glasses. 

“There,” Frank yanked a small, twisted piece of metal from the thick kevlar and held it out. “That’s a 9x19, too. Pretty sure it’s from the same gun.”

The doctor accepted the shard dropped into her palm, and went digging in her toolkit for a magnet. “Are you hurt?” She asked as she tossed plastic-wrapped scalpels aside. 

“Nah.” Frank leaned back. “Bruise is all.” 

“Good.” Leslie snatched her magnetic tool and pressed the magnet against the bullet fragment a couple times. It didn’t attach. “It’s not steel. We’re good.”

With that, Dick unlocked the gurney and pushed it out of the bedroom section and towards their small diagnostic ward. Alfred, when he saw the small party coming, moved from the CT scanner to the pre-prepped MRI. 

Frank stepped up to help Dick and Leslie carefully move Jason from the gurney onto the bed beneath the machine, and then he and Dick stepped back while Leslie set it up. She retreated back further, and they followed suit. Dick swallowed hard as Jason vanished from sight beneath the hulking structure. He was grateful Jason was unconscious. He wouldn’t have taken the cramped space well. 

After that, there was an agonizing wait of twenty minutes before even the first hints of the scan started to load. Dick wished he could run off and do several rounds with a punching bag, but he felt rooted to the spot. 

Finally, Leslie sat down to look at what they had so far. Alfred and Dick and Castle huddled behind her, the former two observing intensely and worriedly and the latter disinterestedly. 

“There’s some swelling, and some bleeding,” Leslie pointed out the darkened patterns on the scan, “but it doesn’t look from here like it’s damaged anything vital. Of course, we won’t know for sure until we’re in there and can see what will happen upon agitation—-“

Castle whistled. “Holy  _ hell. _ What  _ happened _ to him?”

Dick and Alfred glanced back at him, confused, before looking closer at Jason’s brain lighting up the screen. Dick’s eyes scanned the bullet lodged in his little brother’s skull—he swallowed hard and quickly moved on. The dark stain of internal bleeding, the thick, ragged traces of scar tissue—-

Oh. He and Alfred hadn’t startled because they’d seen Jason’s brain scans before. But a stranger wouldn’t be prepared for the amount of scarring Jason was walking around with. Especially on that side of his head. 

In this case, it had saved him. The thick scar tissue protected what was left of his brain. 

“Yeah,” Dick muttered, the word twisting in his throat.

“How is he alive with a brain like that?” Castle asked incredulously, and Alfred silently closed his eyes in pain. 

“He...he sort of; well, not sort of—“ Dick tried to say, but couldn’t finish the thought. Not now. 

“He died.” Leslie said flatly, angry. 

Castle blinked. “The fuck?” He glanced between the three tense expressions. “You ain’t shittin, are you?”

Alfred shook his head silently. 

Castle kind of laughed once, shortly. “Okay.” He said, sounding anything but. His voice was a little bit strained and too high. He stepped away from their little cluster, turning around and running a hand over his shaved head a little compulsively. Dick, who understood the implications very well as someone who’d also lost family, dipped his eyes and turned back to the scans to give him privacy to come to grips with it. 

“I don’t want to delay. I assume blood for transfusions has already been prepped?” Leslie addressed Alfred, who nodded silently. “Alright. I’ll let you boys deal with that helmet of his. Hopefully you’re more familiar with it than I am, because if I know that boy, it’s liable to blow up if you touch it wrong.”

Alfred disappeared, presumably to fetch some sort of power tool, and Leslie started prepping meds and surgical equipment. Dick took a moment to rake a hand through his hair again and wait while the MRI slowly cranked the table section back out. He lifted Jason back onto the gurney by himself, since Frank was still occupied, and wheeled it into their surgical room. 

The table had a mechanized lift, so it would be fairly easy for them to move Jason onto the table. But first they’d have to strip him, and otherwise sanitize the whole work area. Dick wouldn’t be allowed back in until surgery was over. Or until it went downhill fast, but he tried very hard not to think about that. They’d gotten to Jason as fast as they could. He’d stayed stable for a good hour. There was no telling what shape he’d be in when he woke up— _ if _ he woke up—but Dick felt that somehow, he’d be alright. He knew it was naive, but he had to trust that since they’d gotten to him, everything would work out. 

Still. His hand lingered on Jason’s arm longer than necessary. Eventually, when he knew the seconds were ticking away and Alfred or Leslie would come in any second, his grip shifted down to Jason’s hand. He squeezed the limp fingers tightly between his own. “Love you, Jay,” he whispered, just loud enough. “I’ll...I’ll see you when you wake up.”

He released the slack hand and walked away before he could dwell any further. 

He took a post outside the observation window and glanced around in an effort to distract himself. Castle was standing hunched over with his hands against the wall, bracing himself as he stood, near doubled-over. Dick frowned a little with sympathy, but turned away to give him space. Alfred and Leslie had entered the room and were methodically removing Jason’s uniform. They replaced it with a sheet and then Leslie started an IV and went to place the clothes outside while Alfred pulled out the small, handheld electric saw he’d gotten earlier. Dick flinched when he turned it on. He knew they wouldn’t be using  _ that _ on Jason’s skull, but the knowledge that they would be cutting into his head soon made it painful enough. 

Slowly, carefully, Alfred eased the saw down in a horizontal cut across the helmet. He then ran it along the seams, as well, to loosen them. A dull, flat tool from the surgical kit was then used to pry the pieces loose. 

The helmet gave without much effort, and Dick had to stifle a sharp inhale as Jason’s face was suddenly visible again. His heart twisted at the pale, sweat-drenched cheeks, the mussed black hair obscuring the closed eyes, the still, empty expression on his features. He looked so young. He  _ was _ so young. And yet the scars still stood out as much as always, and the nasty wound in his temple began gushing blood. 

“What the fuck,” a low voice growled behind him, and he glanced behind him sharply. He’d almost forgotten Castle was there. His eyes grew wide at the other man’s expression. It was hard and stony and furious and Dick nearly took a step back. “He’s just a fucking  _ kid.” _

The last word came out broken, and Dick watched with nervous breath. Castle’s fist came up beside him, almost subconsciously, before he dropped it back to his hip, where it stayed, quivering slightly. He turned on his heel and stalked away roughly, and Dick, still unnerved, glanced back at the window where they were in the midst of shaving off Jason’s hair around the wound. Long, vaguely-curly lengths of it were dropping to the floor and somehow, that hurt even worse as more and more of his comatose face was visible. 

The roar of a motorcycle startled Dick, and he ran up the stairs to the platform. 

The computer was open on their signals where Alfred must have left it. Bruce’s was visibly pinging, in the financial district. Jason’s back-up bike was gone. 

“Shit,” Dick gulped, and pelted for his sticks, tucking them back into his belt as he ran for his own motorcycle and leapt on. He had to get to Bruce before Castle did and try to sort this thing out before either of them said or did something they’d regret. 

___

 

Bruce was not having a very productive evening. A recurring case of poisoning was plaguing a small section of the city just north of the financial district, but he hadn’t yet been able to pinpoint whether it was deliberate or not, and if so, what was causing it. Dozens of kids and adults alike had been filling the nearby ER’s with classic symptoms of radiation exposure, but there were no connections between them except their neighborhoods. Now, he’d taken to the water treatment plant to investigate after the air and other possible contributing factors came up clean. 

He was slowly making his methodical way from tank to tank, examining all the machinery, the water itself, looking for anything that could explain what was causing the sickness. As he set his lenses to microscopic, the usual nagging worry about how his kids were faring slowly wriggled its way up in the muddled list of concerns. Dick was on night shift at the GCPD tonight. He’d already checked his route and schedule, and it had been relatively light, but of course if a call came in that could all change in an instant. Gordon had his only constant personal contacts in case anything came up, and had promised as a father to let him know as soon as possible in the event of an incident. Bruce hoped to God that he never got that call.

At least he could relax that Tim and Damian were safely in the Manor by now, Damian on a rotating schedule to cooperate with his schooling and Tim having only gone a little ways on a joint shift with Cassandra and Kate earlier. Jason was probably on patrol, but by all accounts he’d handled himself for months. Perhaps not in the way Bruce wished—he still had to see far too many bodies that he knew Jason had put in the morgue—but now was not the time to start thinking about that. There were traces of something different in the water, though at a glance he couldn’t be sure what exactly it was. 

He was halfway down the staircase towards maintenance when a roar from behind him echoed across the space and made him freeze. “Wayne!” 

His blood ran cold. He turned to look. There was a man standing up on the catwalk. He was in body armor and jeans and boots, and there was a gun in his right hand, currently pointed towards the floor, but a gun all the same. He was dirty and soaking wet and glaring hard enough Bruce could almost feel it even from this distance. There was another gun visibly strapped to his back and another on his calf in a holster. 

Bruce had never seen him before in his life. So how the hell did he know his name?

“Yeah, I know who you are, fuckwad,” The man yelled, striding forward and descending the steps. “And you’ve got some nerve, asshole.”

Bruce backed up, fully aware that there was nowhere to go. He decided it would be prudent to stay silent as long as possible and see what this guy revealed on his own without any motivation. Meanwhile, he’d have to figure out an alternate escape plan without having to confront the angry madman with a gun head-on. 

“You got anything to say for yourself, huh?” The man continued, coming steadily forward toward Bruce. His steps clanged down the metal scaffolding and echoed loudly. 

Bruce glanced up. The water tanks towered above him, twenty feet up to the catwalk. It would be difficult to swing without hitting any structures, but he might be able to haul himself up and leap over his assailant before any physical contact happened. If he timed the shot right. 

Which meant he’d have to wait until this guy was too close for comfort to fire.

“I’ve met your type before,” he shouted, still stomping down the scaffolding. “Self-righteous, pain-in-the-ass types in a silly rubber costume. Think you’re better cause you’re doin’ the right thing, huh? Think your noble intentions means you get to half-ass good deeds all you want and never face the consequences, huh? Well I’ve got news for ya, pal. The one I knew? Least he had guts. He gave a shit, even if he didn’t have the balls to finish the job. You could learn a thing or two from him.”

Bruce still had no idea what he was talking about, and he was beginning to get the feeling that the drunken rant had very little to do with him and very much to do with some other personal issues he didn’t understand. But that didn’t stop the threatening advance, or reduce the danger of the gun in his hand—far from it. Bruce knew all too well what sort of damage one could do when unhinged. The stranger was coming down the last staircase and was on level ground with Bruce. “Not the talking type, huh? That’s okay.” His voice dipped dangerously, and the fist around the gun clenched. “I’m not in the mood for any friendly chit-chat.”

Bruce inhaled softly and glanced up, calculating the angle of the shot. He dropped his gaze again and counted. 

When the stranger was only about six feet away, Bruce whipped his grapple gun up and fired, hitting the apex point he’d estimated dead-on. He flicked the button as fast as he could, and was promptly hauled off his feet by the cable. He watched below him as he went, in case he needed to dodge.

Sure enough, the stranger raised his gun without hesitation. But he didn’t aim for Bruce. He aimed above him and to the right, and fired without pausing. And then Bruce was tumbling down. 

He tucked as much as he could and tried to get his feet beneath him. He hadn’t swung far at all, and when he realized it, he twisted himself as best he could in midair and aimed for the stranger. He landed atop him a split second later, and heard a grunt as they hit the poured concrete floor with a thud. Bruce rolled off and scrambled onto his feet, refusing to pause and allow himself an instant to cringe over the sharp pain that had flared in his spine upon landing. 

The stranger was on his feet in seconds, as well, and with another roar, staggered forward and swung a sharp, forceful punch at Bruce’s head. His fist glanced off of the cowl with an unpleasant noise, but it had been hard enough to jar Bruce. He didn’t hesitate beyond yanking the affected hand out of sight, either, and promptly aimed a vicious kick at Bruce’s knee. Bruce dodged and broke the punch that was headed for his stomach this time, pulling around and securing the stranger in a chokehold. “Stop. I don’t want to fight you.” He ordered sternly.

The injured hand clawed pointlessly at his gauntlet, and then the other one came up in a solid fist and socked him in the jaw, hard. Bruce staggered back, a blur of color dancing behind his eyelids. His mouth was stinging. His teeth had clacked together from the force of it. As he dropped his weight back into a clumsy crouch, he reflected that his initial suspicion of drunkenness was wrong. There wasn’t an alcohol smell on his opponent, and despite the deceptively clumsy ferocity of his attacks, they were practiced and efficient. That conclusion was further proven when he was suddenly grasped and thrown down onto his back onto the concrete, and a series of rapid, hard punches were landing on his jaw. He managed to break the force of a couple of them by deflecting as best he could, but the pummeling kept coming. Bruce finally managed to wrench out of the grasp, beginning to feel too reminiscent of his confrontation with Bane that was still too recent to be comfortable. Not feeling particularly charitable, he dropped a smoke bomb full of a respiratory irritant, flicking a button on his cowl to cover his own mouth and nose. 

The stranger covered his mouth with his shirt immediately upon hearing the dispenser go off, but the particles were small enough to make that defense useless, and within seconds he was doubled-over and hacking up a lung. Bruce straightened slowly, wincing but satisfied that his opponent would be decently incapacitated. Even mercenaries needed to breathe. 

He was once again contradicted when the gun, still clasped in the stranger’s fist, came up and leveled at him. He tensed. 

“Wh’t….wh’t the hell w’re you thinkin’.” The other man’s voice was weak and raspy and rough, but the gun wasn’t moving.

Bruce blinked. He’d have to be more specific.

“Y’u….you lost your kid. An’ he came—came back.”

Bruce froze. His heart dropped to somewhere around his feet and began racing alongside his mind. If this person knew his identity, it stood to reason he might know the others. But it was a flimsy excuse, and Bruce knew it. Somehow, this whole scenario aligned in his brain to center around Jason. What had happened to him? 

“An’ you...you  _ let him back out?” _ The gun shook, for the first time. “You let him go put himself in danger? Where he could get himself  _ k’lled _ again?”

Bruce saw white. He was across the space between them and ramming the man into one of the water tanks before he knew what happened.

“What did you do to my son?” He demanded, shoving him harder against the tank. He dimly registered that he’d ripped the gun out of the man’s hand and thrown it aside.

The stranger looked vaguely startled, but still defiant. “I didn’t do a damn—“

“B! Stop!” Another voice—a familiar voice, this time, Bruce noted with relief—shouted. Bruce turned and saw Dick leaping down off the staircase and running towards them. His oldest looked to be in a panic, hair windblown and clothes mussed. He wasn’t even in uniform, Bruce belatedly realized, a fact that led to an extra jab of panic when Dick doubled over and started coughing upon coming within ten feet of them.

Bruce almost dropped the stranger in his haste to reach for his son. “Dick—“

“‘M fine,” the young man gagged, wheezing a couple breaths before straightening as much as he could, still choking involuntarily. “B—“

“You just g-gotta interrupt everythin’, kid?” The man croaked behind them, half-leaning against the tank, and Bruce whirled on him, suspicious. “You know—“

“B.” Dick coughed intensely, eyes locked on Bruce’s urgently. “It’s about Jason.”

Suddenly Bruce could hardly breathe. He’d hoped he’d been wrong earlier—it certainly wouldn’t be the first time he’d irrationally inserted Jason into a stressful situation that had no relevance to..to what had happened to him. But no. Apparently he’d been right, exactly when he wished to God he’d been wrong. “What...what happene—“

“H-he was shot, B. In the head. A and—-“

Bruce didn’t hear the rest of it before he’d grabbed the stranger again and slammed him against the tank hard enough to dent it. “Did you come to taunt me?” He roared. He faintly heard Dick shouting behind him, and felt hands on his shoulders, but ignored them to glare into the man’s eyes, which suddenly widened with barely-perceptible fear. 

“B!” Dick was prying his hands off and physically hauling him back, stumbling over his hoarse words. “He didn’t shoot Jason. He helped me g’t  him out. There...there was a shootout with the traffickers—“

Bruce’s head snapped to the side. “Is he alive?”

“He...he was when I left,” Dick stammered, face twisting up like he was about to cry at the reminder, and Bruce wanted to grab him and pull him to his chest and hug him tight, apologize. “A and Leslie were operating.”

Bruce looked at the stranger again, who was hunched over and watching them silently. “Who’s this?”

Dick hesitated, licked his lips, and gave a half-incredulous laugh, like he expected Bruce to laugh at him. “He’s Frank Castle, B.”

Bruce was surprised. He knew of him, of course, but he definitely wouldn’t have looked for him to be in a water treatment plant in Gotham, let alone attacking him and calling him by name. Looking at the panting figure, still eyeing him warily, he realized that the whole spiel he’d taken to be threatening Jason had really been, as he’d suspected, personal. He’d have to be an idiot not to connect the dots. He’d drawn the same conclusions from Jason’s resurrection when Damian had died. An anger that he’d been robbed of his child. A knowledge that one person that he knew of had come back. So why couldn’t everyone? 

Offhandedly, Bruce noticed that he’d broken some of the machinery with how hard he’d rammed Castle against the water tank. There was a panel on the side of the tank to control water pressure that was now cracked.  

Actually, now that he looked at the panel, the water levels in the tanks were higher than they ought to be. Which didn’t make much sense. It would have to be done manually, and why would you fill the tanks past their limits?

Bruce suddenly took off around the other side of the tank. 

“B—!” Dick called, breaking off with another irritated cough. He strode after his father with a huff. Frank stayed where he was, hands on his knees. He hung his head.

Bruce had one of his devices equipped with a geiger counter and infrared out and seemed to be following some sort of structure along the walls. He finally paused, and Dick caught up and looked over his shoulder. There was some sort of blockage in the plumbing, and the geiger counter was in dangerous levels.

“Found our contaminant.” Bruce said grimly. “But it doesn’t look deliberate. Probably someone trying to get rid of waste material by dumping it.”

Dick absently watched the spasming gauge, thoughtful. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt anyone.”

Bruce met his eyes and nodded silently, replacing the device on his belt and pulling out a phone instead. “We can’t do anything more here. The commissioner will have to get in touch and bring some experts to safely dispose of it. And we need to go home.”

Dick nodded, relieved. “I only brought my bike. So….I guess Castle could fit on it…?”

Bruce glanced back over at him. He was still standing where he had been, no longer panting, but head still hanging and chest still heaving. “No. I’ll drive him back.”

___

Bruce drove silently. Castle was equally silent, but still managed to give off a distinct rage as he sat in the front passenger seat, arms folded across his chest, glaring out the window.

It….reminded Bruce remarkably of driving any one of his teenagers when they were mad at him. Jason especially. 

It made even more sorrow clench up with the worry already twisting his chest to bits. 

Dick moved faster than they did on his bike, and promptly zipped around the car and around a building and disappeared from view on his way home. He’d beat them there. Not by much. Bruce hoped he could get there before Dick had a chance to update him.

If things had gone badly, he didn’t want Dick to have the weight on his shoulders of being the one who had to tell him. And he didn’t want to have to hear it over the radio, either. He didn’t ever want to hear that he was too late, ever again.

“You wear the mask all the time?” Castle asked derisively. He turned his face away from the window, but didn’t look Bruce in the eye, or even glance in his direction.

Bruce was silent, and took a left turn carefully. Then, when they were on a straight-of-way, he reached up and pulled his cowl back. He glanced over at Castle once. Castle only met his gaze for a split second before glaring out the window again.

After a length of silence, Castle hoarsely asked, “Did you know,” so softly Bruce could barely hear it.

“Know what?” Bruce asked.

“That he was gonna come back.”

Bruce shut his eyes. “No.” He steered along a curve in the road. “I had no idea.”

Castle said nothing for a long moment. Eventually he scoffed weakly. “Not sure if that makes it worse or better.”

Bruce said nothing and waited.

“How did it happen?” Castle asked after a moment. He sounded only vaguely wary.

Bruce swallowed. He didn’t want to think about it willingly. It already played in the back of his mind all the time--on patrol, in the middle of paperwork, in the shower, at the dinner table, in the wee hours of the morning when he was fast asleep. He always hated when it showed. Early on, it had been enough to make him crush papers, or turn the shower to extreme hot or cold. It had been enough to make him shove the table back and run off to throw up what little he’d managed to eat. It had been enough to wake him from near-unconsciousness with a scream on his lips that was never voiced because he didn’t have enough air to voice it with. Even now, it pained him to see Tim and Damian eyeing him warily when it struck in the middle of a meal, their one semi-normal daily activity. He hated how it spoiled his ability to enjoy it. He hated waking up in the middle of the night, disoriented and unsure of what year it was, the bonds of time blurred and muddy and rearranged by sleep, and wonder if Jason was alive or not. Sometimes he couldn’t keep track. Sometimes he could only reassure himself by reading Jason’s recent texts, which he only saw because Barbara kept a record he had access to. Sometimes he typed out a message to Jason’s unused contact and stared at it with weary eyes for hours before deleting it. Jason wouldn’t want to hear it. It would only upset him, make him angry. No apology could ever take away what Bruce had done to him. How badly he’d failed him. 

“He was fifteen.” Bruce said, swallowing. “He’d been declining; mentally, emotionally. Normal teenage stuff, but exacerbated by his childhood abuse and neglect by his biological parents. I floundered. I didn’t know what to do. I was no stranger to it, but I had never handled it well myself. Everything I did hurt him worse. I decided it was too much of a risk to let him in the field while he was like this. I worried he’d hurt others; or himself. I hoped to buy time to fix it privately, just between us, without any masks involved.”

Bruce smiled sickly, mockingly, to himself. “He found out that I’d been investigating his biological mother. I’d hoped that maybe I could figure out something to tether him to, since he seemed to need a family anchor so badly, and I couldn’t cut it. But then I found that she was criminally questionable. He took it as me discarding him, and ran away to meet her. I followed him, but by the time I’d gotten there, he’d already been double-crossed. He’d tried to help his mother, thinking her a victim. She was, but not a hapless one. She was working with the Joker.”

“He...he beat Jason with a crowbar for at least an hour. A hit on the head and both his legs to incapacitate him, and then he….amused himself for the rest of the time. He left him and his mother there, with a bomb.”

“Jesus,” Castle murmured, barely audibly.

Bruce clenched his gloved hands on the steering wheel. “I got there three minutes after the bomb went off. It took another five to find his mother. By the time I found him…” Bruce’s words choked in his throat. “...He’d….been gone. For a while.”

The only sound in the car was road noise. It felt unbearably loud. Bruce tried hard to calm down without audibly struggling to breathe. 

“Did his mother live?” 

Bruce shook his head tightly. “No.”

“Good.” Castle sat back in his seat. “Serves her right. Bitch.”

Bruce privately, shamefully, agreed. He would never breathe a word of it to Jason.

If he ever talked with him again at all. Bruce gritted his teeth against the stinging in his eyes and pressed his foot down on the gas harder. 

“So how long’s he been back?” Castle asked conversationally. 

Bruce would have been irritated if he hadn’t had to think. The months and years and days seemed to meld together. “...At least three years,” he finally said. “I don’t know details.”

“Are you saying you had nothing to do with it?” Castle asked disbelievingly, looking at Bruce for the first time in the entire conversation. 

Bruce held his gaze for a moment before glancing back at the road. “I didn’t. My son died. Death is permanent. I knew that better than anyone.” 

“And what? When you…..found out? You just….let him go his own way? ‘Whatever, son, you’re a man now, go out there and make somethin’ of yourself?’” Castle’s voice rose incredulously. 

“It’s not that simple,” Bruce said tightly.

“Oh bullshit, it  _ is _ that simple,” Castle burst out, jabbing his elbow against the center console and pushing himself up in the seat. “Do you know what I would give, to have a second chance with my son? My baby girl? Do you know what I would give to see either one of them again, even once? Do you know what I’d do to see them both grown, to go marry some shitty software developer or anthropology major? I would slit my own throat right now if it’d do it. If I could die instead of them, I’d do it in a heartbeat. My kid came back, I wouldn’t give a shit if they were cannibals now. If you expect me to believe that there is anything your kid did that makes it okay for you to just up and dump him like that, you’re so off your rocker I don’t know how you still walk.”

Bruce took the whole tirade silently, expressionless. “I’ve made mistakes.” He admitted, without flinching.

Castle scoffed, disgustedly this time. “I see my kids. Every day. I miss them so much I see them behind my eyelids. Every day. And then I wake up.”

With that, Castle sat back and stared straight ahead at the road. 

Bruce swallowed hard and said nothing. 

When they were on the path back to the Cave’s entrance, Bruce glanced at the sullen man in the passenger seat and swallowed again. “Castle.” He said. 

The slightest shift of eyes told him that he was listening.

“I’m very sorry about your wife and children.” Bruce said quietly. 

Frank restlessly shuffled in the seat, avoiding Bruce’s gaze. “Whatever, shithead.” He muttered. 

Bruce hated to leave it at that, but now they were heading into the Cave, and he had to focus on steering them up to the usual parking space. The stress he’d been shoving down the whole drive back reasserted itself viciously and he was clenching his fists so hard they hurt by the time he climbed out of the car. There was no one there to greet him. He wasn’t sure if he was more relieved or nervous. 

He slowly made his way towards their operating room, uncertain of whether they’d be done yet or not. That question was answered when he saw Dick hovering in front of the window. He stepped up behind him and glanced over his shoulder. 

Alfred and Leslie were still working, Alfred cleaning surgical tools and Leslie occupied with stitching the incision up. Bruce winced as she dragged the thread tight through the nearly bare skin of Jason’s scalp. It was a shock to see his hair gone. It wasn’t a complete shave; there was still some length, but far less than there had been the last time he’d seen him. 

There was a fair measure of relief. Because at least he was alive. But there was trepidation, still. Worry. A nagging pull at the back of his mind not to relax, not to celebrate too soon. Things could still spiral. They always could. 

“The traffickers?” He asked Dick.

“Mostly dead.” Dick responded, his voice tight and quiet. “Maybe one or two survivors. If Jim got to them in time, they’re in custody.” 

Bruce glanced back at Jason’s unconscious face and winced. Another group of morgue reports he’d have to sift through and analyze and chalk up. 

It suddenly occurred to him that it was a strange thing to do, keeping records of all the people Jason had killed. Having a folder on his computer desktop that was regularly updated. With names, ages, personal details that even their families likely didn’t know. Exact descriptions of their causes of death. 

It didn’t help him understand Jason in any way, but he stared at it for hours as though it would. It didn’t provide a measured timeline of Jason’s decline or recovery, as it may or may not have been going. It was as sporadic and inconsistent as Jason himself sometimes seemed to be. 

Was that why he did it? Insisting, believing somehow that there had to be a deeper explanation, a discernible reason for the carnage? Putting Jason’s trauma under a microscope because he did it with everything else?

Swallowing the sour taste in his mouth, Bruce resolved to clear the folder of everything but necessities. There was no point in keeping it. Jason would never look at it, and if he did, it would never do him any good. And that was what should have been the goal all along. 

Alfred exited the operating room. Leslie was finishing the sutures and taping gauze to the site of the injury. Dick and Bruce both immediately stepped up to Alfred. The butler met their concern with exhaustion. “That side of his head is mostly scar tissue, as we knew,” he reported tiredly. “We’ll keep him on blood and antibiotics as needed. The majority of the bullet was removed fairly easily, but it fragmented, so there are pieces remaining in that Doctor Thompkins thought it better to leave be.” 

Dick took it without a word. Bruce only quietly asked, “Any idea about damage?”

Alfred only slightly raised a cupped hand. “Remains to be seen. You know how unpredictable these injuries are. We’ll have a better idea whenever he awakens.”

Bruce nodded silently.

Alfred sighed. “I’d best get tidied up and go upstairs to check on the lads,” he said briskly, already removing his cap. “Those two have been left unsupervised far too long for my tastes.”

With that, he headed for the showers, leaving Dick and Bruce together by the window. Dick glanced back at Bruce, and seemed to remember their predicament. “Did Castle…” he started, under his breath, but Bruce shook his head. “It’s fine. Or...it’s not, but no crisis, Dick.” He offered a pained smile. “At least not on that front.” 

Dick nodded, eyes down. He exhaled slowly and Bruce looked him over again, concerned. He looked like he’d been run ragged, and he hadn’t even been out on patrol tonight. At least, not ours, Bruce corrected himself. “You should go clean up,” he said. “You look like you’re exhausted. Is the irritant still bugging you?”

Dick looked up, a shock of blue eyes beneath black fringe. “No. Well...not much.”

That was all Bruce needed to hear. Before Dick had finished speaking he was leading him over to the triage room with an arm around his shoulders. “We don’t need two men down tonight,” Bruce said wryly, well aware of the silliness the theatricality of the wording stirred.

Sure enough, Dick was smirking faintly when he glanced down. Circus boy, he thought affectionately. “You’re a real comedian sometimes, ya know that?” 

“...Never been accused of it before in my life.” Bruce said loftily, and Dick snorted very gently. Bruce gently shoved him towards the gurney, and Dick obediently trudged over and sat down heavily with another sigh.

Bruce hummed as he rummaged in one of the upper cabinets. “Not much I can do for that aside from some albeuterol, chum,” he said apologetically. 

“I know.” Dick coughed a bit. It had mostly dissipated, but apparently he’d been stifling for a while. Bruce winced as he crossed the room again and started setting up the machine on the bedside table. “I’m sorry that you got caught in it, Dick.”

Dick watched him fit the mask pieces together while fiddling with his thumbs in his lap. He shrugged. When Bruce was occupied with fastening the tube to the nebulizer, he spoke up again, softly. “B?”

“Hmm?” Bruce glanced back at him, but turned to face him fully when he saw his serious expression. “What is it, chum?”

“Is…” Dick seemed to fumble for the right words. “What did Fr—what did Castle say, before I got there? Did he hurt you?”

Bruce was taken aback. “No. I mean…” He shook his head ruefully. “What he said wasn’t particularly kindly meant, but I’m fine, chum.” He smiled painedly. “It was nothing I haven’t ever heard from myself before.”

Dick’s expression was sad, and Bruce, with the return of his perpetual guilt at causing pain no matter what he did, turned back and switched the machine on. He glanced back at Dick and held the mask out to him. Without breaking his gaze, Dick accepted it and held it obediently over his mouth and nose. 

“You don’t always have to sweep it under the rug for our sakes’, you know,” he mumbled, barely audible over the sharp hissing from the nebulizer. 

Bruce gently poked at the bridge of his nose with one finger. “No talking with that thing on,” he said, fond despite himself. 

Dick stuck his tongue out beneath the mask at him, and Bruce ruffled his hair before standing up and heading back out into the main cave. 

Castle was still standing by the car, seemingly lost in thought. Bruce approached him cautiously. “Jason will be down here under observation until he wakes up. I’ll be staying to keep watch. There are extra gurneys and a few collapsible cots in storage behind that wall.”

“I don’t need sleep,” Castle sneered tightly. 

Bruce shrugged. “Your choice.” With that, Bruce turned and sat at the computer, opening up a file. 

It took an hour or more. But eventually, he heard the telltale sounds of metal squeaks and scuffling that told him Castle had gone to pull out one of the cots.

Bruce smiled quietly to himself and kept working. 

___

The next morning, Jason was still unconscious.

He was that evening.

And the afternoon after that.

Leslie came back twice for an exam and a consultation. Bruce and Alfred worried in their own ways. Dick had to go back to work, clearly stressed out of his mind. 

And for whatever reason, Frank was still there, too. 

Bruce didn’t necessarily begrudge the man not wanting to make the trek back to New York right that instant, and it wasn’t like they had any lack of space or facilities. But he didn’t appreciate having a stranger in his cave, and especially not when he was in the midst of a personal crisis like this. 

Plus, it was making him antsy trying to keep Tim and Damian away from him.

Tim, once he found out exactly who the stranger in the cave was, wanted to know all the details of the conspiracy to kill Castle’s family. He insisted it was for educational purposes, to be used in detecting gang and drug tactics before they got so bad. Bruce had worried that the subject would be sore for Castle, but surprisingly he’d explained as many investigative details as possible in a very bemused tone. Tim had sat and madly taken notes in a stack of brand new notebooks that became beat up fairly quickly. Damian, meanwhile, had his interest piqued by the marine’s body count. Much to Bruce’s consternation. He knew it wasn’t Damian’s fault, or Damian expressing rebellion; this was something he had in common with Frank that he didn’t have in common with Bruce, and never would. 

He reserved the right to his blood pressure spiking when Damian and Frank started comparing knife techniques, though. Especially hearing Damian’s avid interest in the design of Frank’s standard issue knife. 

He preferred to spend the time sitting with Jason. Or working on case files. Or working out. It wasn’t that he felt awkward listening to Castle converse with his kids. It wasn’t because something about the even, gentle way the man talked to them made something uncomfortable and sad knot in his stomach. It was like Castle wasn’t even aware of it. There was a roughness to it, of course. A certain authority that reminded the listeners of their diminutive state. But it never mocked it. One could almost say it respected it. 

Cassandra slipped into the Cave almost unnoticed as afternoon was stretching into evening. Bruce glanced just slightly over his shoulder when he heard her before returning his gaze to the monitor with some measure of relief he knew she could see. Damian had been going through his usual weapons training with Castle observing and occasionally giving him pointers. Damian always took the advice with a huff and a comment informing him that he had been doing this since he could stand straight for longer than a few seconds. It depressed Bruce and amused Castle every time. But Damian’s running commentary cut off when Cass approached him in her usual silence.

“Cassandra,” Damian said, not warmly, but not coldly, either. Bruce was glad that Damian seemed to have gained some respect for his elder sister.

“Hi.” Cass said quietly, behind him. Bruce resisted the urge to turn and watch her reaction as she laid eyes on Castle for the first time. One look would tell him what she saw, but he stayed still and settled for listening. She would tell him what he needed to know, anyway. 

He heard the change in her tone when she moved from greeting one person to the next, even though the word was the same. “Hi.”

A pause. “Ma’am.” Castle replied, in a gravelly and polite tone. 

Another quiet lull. It wasn’t tense, necessarily. Thoughtful. Bruce almost jumped when he felt Cassandra drape herself over his shoulders, her chin slightly digging into his collarbone.

He tensed rather than jumped. He knew she’d felt it because she grinned.

The smile quickly faded back into her thoughtful expression. Bruce pressed a kiss to her hair. He glanced at her eyes, waiting patiently.

“He is...jagged.” Cass said lowly. Bruce could hear the slight sounds of combat from back in the training area. “Bleeding like a wound. It never heals. Always there.”

Bruce swallowed tightly. He knew it, too; though perhaps not in the same way. 

Alfred had said it once, back when he had admitted to him in tears that he wanted to die rather than live without Jason.  _ We all expect to lose our parents someday, sir. It’s the usual course of nature. We assume we’ll figure a way to live without them. They’re older, they go first, after a long life well lived. That idea is so ingrained that even when they don’t, it’s still tolerable, even if it hurts. But no one expects their child to die before they do. It’s unfair. They’re supposed to live on, not us. They’re the ones who are supposed to be free and happy and alive when we’re gone. It breaks a person, to put their child in the ground. Even before they got the chance to know them, it breaks their hearts. When you did have the privilege of knowing them…  _ Alfred’s voice had faltered with tears, but finished firmly,  _ the wound is deeper and deadlier than one could have imagined before.  _

And two of them. God, two of them at once. Bruce could imagine, but hated imagining it. He didn’t know how he would live through that. How anyone would.

Maybe it was true. No one got to choose what dragged them through. No one got to pick from a convenient line-up of the things worth staying alive for. And no one got the right to be picky about what the remaining husk of a person was like. 

But at the same time….Bruce could never condone the death. No matter how much he wanted to. 

He supposed the silly catchphrase actually had a point. Love the sinner, hate the sin. He could do both. Both were possible. He could ache for Frank Castle’s loss in his chest every time he thought of it, and be disgusted and heartsick over the piles of broken bodies drenched in blood at the same time. Just as he could wallow in his own pain at least once every day, waking up from a fleeing dream of his mother’s voice or his father’s hands, of his sons as children and his sons as adults, of his sons in their twin beds in their manor bedrooms and of his sons in coffins. 

Cassandra leaned her temple against the crook of his neck. He tilted his head into the easy embrace. “You hurt for him, but you are afraid of him.” She said softly.

“I do that a lot,” he murmured back. 

“To Jason.” Cass replied, not shifting her gaze from straight ahead.

“Yes.” Bruce mumbled roughly. 

___

“Fucking  _ shitsticks.” _

The faint growl woke Frank with a start, and he lifted his head off his elbow to quickly survey the cave. It was surprisingly empty, and a glance at his watch told him why. It was 11:42. Patrol had been on for nearly an hour. 

He glanced in the general direction of the cracking voice and saw the medbay. Shrugging, he swung his legs off the side of the bed and wandered over to look in the windows.

Sure enough, Jason Todd was thrashing mildly in the bed, face scrunched up in a mix of irritation and pain as he tugged at the oxygen cannula in his nose. 

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” Frank said flatly, stepping up into the automatic sliding door. “Not if you didn’t want your dad to have a stroke or some shit, anyway.”

Jason cracked an eyelid open and studied Frank calculatingly. “All the more reason to fuck with it, then,” he muttered viciously, still yanking at it. “Serves him right. He can lie around stuck in bed all week for once.”

He finally tugged the thing out of his nostrils and threw it off to the side as hard as he could. It wound up mildly sagging at the edge of the bed. “Do I know who the fuck you are?” He asked casually, moving for the IV this time. 

“Frank Castle.” Frank shrugged, hands in his pockets. 

“Huh.” Jason said thoughtfully, carefully extracting the needle from the back of his hand. “Assuming that was you infringing on my party-crashing, then.”

“I also hauled your ass out of that warehouse, if it helps.” 

“Eh.” Jason flapped a non-bleeding hand dismissively. “You know you’re s’posed to ask permission before helping someone?”

“I waive that requirement when they’re, you know, almost fuckin’ dead.” Frank shrugged and leaned back against the glass walls, crossing his arms. 

“Good for you,” Jason said, yanking the pillowcase off one-handed and jamming the wadded-up thing over his bleeding hand. He glanced over Frank’s shoulder warily. “They’re uh, not around, are they?”

Frank shook his head. “Patrol time. Finally some peace and quiet around here.”

Jason huffed in agreement, throwing back his covers. “Well, thanks for dragging me back, I guess, but I’m gonna get the hell out of dodge while there’s no one around to scold me or pout at my bedside.” The casual statement was affected a bit by how he listed dangerously upon standing. 

“Are you now.” Frank asked dully, eyeing him. 

“Yep,” Jason popped the last part of the word for emphasis, and grabbed clumsily for the IV pole. He hissed as he listed again and the pillowcase-clad hand went to his head, but stopped short of grasping the gauze-taped spot.

“Pretty sure you still have a hole in your skull, there,” Frank remarked. “Not real advisable to go traipsing around.”

“Never stopped me before,” Jason ground out through his teeth, voice cracking. He moved his hand away from his head, but it faltered a bit as it slumped back down. 

Frank sighed sharply. “Kid, you’re gonna kill yourself.”

“So what.” Jason said flatly, attempting to take a step. It was very marginal and he was swaying more than a waltzing drunkard. His knuckles were white on the iv pole and his face was almost the same color as his plain white tee. 

“Look, I have a van,” Frank said. He’d gone to get it before someone could steal it—or the arsenal inside it. But Wayne had insisted it couldn’t be in the cave, so he’d left it parked at the entrance. “I’ll give you a ride to wherever.”

Jason had turned his squinted gaze to Frank halfway through the statement, red-rimmed eyes hard despite the strain. “Why?”

“Maybe I feel bad that a kid got shot when I was around.” Frank said derisively, staring stubbornly at the ceiling. 

Jason stared vacantly for a moment, like he couldn’t wrap his head around that sentence but still managed to be vaguely offended on principle by it, and finally sputtered, “Oh, fine. Whatever. Give me a fuckin’ ride.”

“Alrighty then.” Rather than turning, Frank came closer, and Jason backed up half a step but was stuck due to his shakiness on his feet. “What are you doing,” he said, more than a tad nervously.

Frank grasped his elbow and gave him an unimpressed look. “Settling you in a slightly more reachable place so you don’t faceplant and knock yourself out in the two seconds I’m gone,” he said dully. “You okay with that?”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Jason said awkwardly, and let himself be dragged cautiously along to a few steps outside the automatic glass doors that sealed their recovery room off from the main cave. Frank wound up depositing him straight into an office chair that had appeared from somewhere. He then promptly vanished down the dark shadows that enveloped the side of the cave that led towards the outside world. 

Jason squirmed uncomfortably in the chair and glanced around, irrationally nervous that one of the others would suddenly appear out of nowhere and drag him back to bed while fretting and fussing mightily. He hated being the center of attention in any instance like this. It always just made him feel guilty, like it was his fault for getting hurt and stressing everyone out. Well, it wasn’t like he’d  _ asked _ them all to drag him back here and cut the metal out of his head and trap him in bed for weeks on end.

Then again, he considered with a wince as he lightly fingered the edges of the gauze taped to his head, maybe they had a point this time. He didn’t feel too bad for having been shot in the fucking head, but he had a feeling a good part of that was due to the heavy-duty painkillers he’d just smartly detached himself from. At the moment, his whole body felt kind of buzzy and sharp but not-painful in a way he’d come to associate with meds. He had a whisper of a headache that he had a feeling would only grow and get worse the longer he was off them. He also, as he realized from touching his scalp, had barely any hair left, and he exhaled heavily, running a hand over the scratchy mess that was left. That sucked. He knew it’d grow back relatively quickly—he’d probably have a full head of hair again in a few months—but he really didn’t like how he looked without bangs. It was a stupid thing to think  _ about—my vanity, with all the totally-real girls I have lined up _ , he thought with a snort—but hey. A guy was allowed to appreciate his hair. 

The rumble of an engine made him straighten, and soon a battered grey van appeared from the shadows and pulled up to the end of the catwalk. Jason started to stand up, but the door of the van thudded as it was closed and before he really had time to even try to get up, Castle was striding towards him. He grabbed the edge of the office chair and began pushing Jason across the catwalk towards the van. 

Jason slumped back and rolled his eyes. “Well this isn’t emasculating at all,” he remarked. 

“You’ll get over it, kid.” Castle replied flatly. He shoved the chair around the van to the passenger side and hauled the door open. 

Jason held up a hand. “Nope. I’m climbing out of this chair all by my lonesome, thank you.” And he did, hands shaking on the armrests of the chair and all. He got on his feet and meticulously clambered into the seat, panting when he was settled. Frank watched the entire process like a hawk, and promptly turned around and wheeled the chair back. No sense stealing Wayne’s office chair. He came back to the van and climbed into the driver’s seat, and fired it up.

“Where’m I takin’ you to, kid,” he asked.

“I’ve...got an apartment,” Jason waved a hand, eyes closed, still out of breath. “S’across town, edge of the financial district and the Pier.”

Frank threw the van in reverse and backed it up, turning carefully. “Gonna need a little more specificity than that when we get into town.”

Jason hummed in response, breathing hard, head tilted towards the window. 

__

 

The kid’s apartment was actually in a fairly nice building. Frank almost felt bad for parking near it, but he didn’t have the leverage to complain. He had to help Jason out of the van, and help him limp his way up into the building. Frank jabbed the elevator button with his elbow, ending any discussion of the stairs before it began. Jason took this in stride, hanging without resistance against Frank, shoulders heaving very slightly. 

The two of them heavily stumbled their way down the hallway till Jason flailed a pointed finger at one of the doors. Frank steered them up to it.

“Don’t s’pose you have a key,” Frank said flatly. 

Jason rolled his eyes and pulled away from Frank. Frank let him go, but watched when he ducked down and dug through the potted plant in the hallway. He came back up with dirty fingers and a key between them. 

The door swung open and Jason stumbled in on his own. Frank followed at a slower pace and glanced around. It looked pretty much like a normal apartment. Calendar on the wall (still on the previous month, but oh well), blackout curtains everywhere but the kitchen window, which had a potted flower sitting beneath it. A very large couch, which Jason quickly collapsed upon and huddled into a ball. He dragged a fringed, soft-looking throw over himself and shut his eyes. 

Frank stepped over the threshold into the living room and stood with his hands in his pockets. “Your dad know where this place is?”

“In theory, no.” Jason replied, voice thick with exhaustion. “In reality? Eh, maybe an hour or so till he shows up nagging me to come back.”

“You gonna go back if he does?”

Jason shrugged one shoulder faintly. “If I feel like it.”

“That how you do things with him? Just on a whim?” Frank asked, genuinely curious.

“I like to keep him guessing,” Jason mumbled, half into the blanket. “Serves him right. He wants me to be one way, I’ll be another.”

“You hate him that much?” Frank’s voice dipped, gravelly and hurt.

Jason froze.

“No.” He said after a moment, voice choked and very young. “I don’t. That’s the problem.” 

Frank crossed the room and sank down on one knee in front of the couch. Jason opened his eyes at that. He clearly had enough experience to not let anyone that close without watching them, and it made anger roil in Frank’s chest. But he kept his voice low. “Look, kid. I dunno either of you from Adam, but even I can tell he loves you. Shit at showing it, for sure, but he does. And you love him back. You know how lucky you are to have that? You have any idea how often that doesn’t happen?”

“Course I fuckin’ do,” Jason replied, taut. “My dad was a worthless piece of shit that as good as killed my mom. I hated him since I can remember. He’s been dead for twelve years and I still do. If I had him in front of me today, I just might kill him. I had nothing;  _ nothing _ till I had Bruce.”

“But you still do, kid.” Frank pressed closer. “You still have him, do you get that?”

“No I don’t.” Jason’s eyes closed tight because there were tears in them. “Sure, he’s alive and I’m alive, but it doesn’t matter. When...when Joker killed me, he killed what we had. Even—even though I do still love him, even if he  _ does _ still love me, I can’t ever trust him again, and he can’t trust me. This is as good as it gets; we only see each other when one of us is dying. W-will I help? Sure. Will he try to save me? Sure. But t-there’s a line. And he won’t cross it. Not for me, not for anyone. And I can’t.” Jason lashed out with his arm and punched the arm of the couch, over and over like it was the cause of all this. “I just can’t fuckin deal with it.” 

“You really think you should have to deal with it?”

Jason shook his head and gulped, too wrecked to talk. 

Frank shook his head. “Kid. You listen and you listen good. Got that?”

Jason kept looking away, tears streaking down his cheeks.

“Look, I know what it’s like to be alone. I’ve been alone for a real long time now, and I didn’t always have to be. I had people before. My wife and kids. Lots of times I wonder if they’d even know me, if they saw me today. If my kids would hate me. They were already scared of me before, and they were right to be. But my wife wasn’t. She knew what I was, and she didn’t care. But that was before someone blew her head off while they were tryin’ to kill me.”

“But I had people after her, too. I still do. Not many, but a few who put up with me. Even with all the shit I drag them into. You know where they are? As far away from me as I could get ‘em. I know where they are, but I don’t talk to ‘em. I don’t go see ‘em. I want them far away from me. There is no out that I’m willing to take. This is it. I kill, I maim. I don’t regret it, and I won’t stop.” 

Jason was watching him now, a mix of awareness and disgust and pity swimming in his gaze. Frank swallowed gravel. “But  _ I’m _ the one that decided that was how it had to be. I’ve met people I care about, people I could live with, if I decided to. If I wanted another family, I could have one. But I don’t want one. That’s why I push ‘em away. I don’t wanna be loved again. I want to keep the first one with me forever. I never want another, even if it could be good in a different way. Maybe...maybe I think it’ll keep ‘em from disappearing, I dunno. But the bottom line is….I do that shit because I’m an idiot. It’s not because it’s  _ right. _ I know it’s not right. But I don’t give a shit.”

Jason swallowed quietly. 

“You get me?” Frank prodded.

Jason nodded silently, eyes downcast. “I get it.” He said hoarsely. He pulled the blanket tighter around himself and curled up. 

Frank backed off and took a seat at the small table next to the window. “You get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

Jason blinked blearily at him. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” Frank nervously tapped his hands against the tabletop, and then laid them flat, twitching but still. 

Jason watched him for a moment, in the dull dark of the apartment. “You know, there was a time…” he said, broken and hesitant. “There was a time when I would’ve given anything for...for Bruce to be someone more like you. Or I thought I would. If...if he could just  _ care _ enough to do what it would take to keep all of us safe.”

Jason dropped his eyes to the floor, fiddled with the fringe on the corner of the blanket. “But now I think...I think that wouldn’t be Bruce. You’re...he’s a mess, a fuckin wreck of a hot mess, but he’s….he’s  _ Bruce. _ Even when he’s an  _ ass, _ you can’t hate him. He still believes in people, even when he shouldn’t. But if he didn’t….he probably would’ve given up on me years ago. The...the same things I hate about him are the things that. That make him what he is.” 

“That’s how it works most of the time, kid.” Frank shrugged, staring at the curtained window. “People are what they are, not what you want them to be. You don’t get to make ‘em into something they’re not. That’s just how it is.” 

“Yeah,” Jason whispered after a long moment of quiet. “I guess.” 

___

 

True to Jason’s prediction, there was a knock on the window at 2:43. Frank was up and had a handgun pressed against the glass before he’d tugged the curtain back to reveal Wayne crouching on the ledge beneath the window, back in his batsuit.

Frank rolled his eyes and flicked the safety back on, pulling the gun away from the window before he unlatched it and opened it. “You people don’t ever take a break from the costume shit, do you?”

Wayne shrugged as he climbed through. He promptly tugged off his cowl and scanned the room for Jason. The kid had woken right up upon hearing Frank move and was now staring at Wayne from the couch with a mix of trepidation and resignation. 

Wayne cast a slight glance back at Castle, and then seemed to dismiss whatever he was thinking. He crossed the room near-silently despite the heavy boots he was wearing, and crouched down beside the couch. “Jay.”

“B.” Jason said back.

A pause. Bruce was eyeing him and Jason was stoically avoiding it. “Looks nice in here. Did you get a new bookshelf?”

Jason met Bruce’s gaze with a flat expression. “Ran out of room.”

Bruce smiled at that, just a bit. He schooled his features quickly, but the warmth lingered. “You know…” he ducked his head, his voice dipping. “You know I’m not trying to run you off, right?”

Jason huffed. “Yeah,” he mumbled back, just as low.

“I know I’m shit at it sometimes,” Bruce started, pausing. “Well...a lot of the time.” He smiled, a mix of apologetic and pained. “I don’t mean to be, but that doesn’t make it any better.”

“I know.” Jason sighed. He shifted uncomfortably, tugged his blanket over his shoulder tighter. 

“I know we disagree, and we probably always will,” Bruce said, watching Jason’s reaction. “But I don’t want you to feel like you have to leave as soon as you’re no longer critical. Be honest, you’re probably in a lot of pain right now, aren’t you? And you just want to try and sleep it off?”

“I could if a  _ certain someone _ didn’t knock on the window and wake me up,” Jason said grumpily. “And besides,” he looked away and his voice went nearly inaudible. “I know it’s a bit more than disagree. I know that what I do is a stain on you and the rest of your little battalion.”

Bruce’s face looked like he’d swallowed something sour. “Jason—“

“I killed seven people today, Bruce. At least,” Jason hissed through his teeth. “And I don’t regret it, either. I’d do it again. And I will.”

“You also saved at least twenty women,” Bruce said back, voice level. “Including a young girl, who’s going to be placed with a competent relative so this never happens again. I don’t like killing, Jason, and you know that, but what you do is necessary sometimes. The police do it, and I work with them.” 

Jason sputtered, indignant and angry. “You smug bastard,” he choked. He turned his head and glared at the ceiling, his eyes wet. “You’ll say that bullshit just to worm your way into my good graces again, cause you know what it does to me! You know I need your approval and I hate that I need it! You—you  _ hate _ what I do. You hate that  _ I _ do it. You might as well admit that you hate me, too.”

“No, I don’t.” Bruce insisted, steel in his voice, too.

“You do so,” Jason sniffed in the midst of it, and scoffed at himself. “You can’t even admit it to yourself. You loved me when I was sweet and innocent and loved you back and then you  _ let him kill me _ and take that away from  _ both of us!  _ And now you want  _ that _ me back, and you can’t even see that he’s gone— _ I’m _ gone, and I can’t, I  _ can’t _ come back—!”

“God, Jason!” Bruce burst out, and Jason recoiled, eyes huge. “Damnit,” Bruce gritted, ducking his head, eyes clenched shut. “Do you think I’m  _ proud _ that I let that happen? It disgusts me. There’s not a day that I’ve thought about you and been proud that I got you killed. I hate  _ myself _ for not killing the Joker for you! Maybe it would’ve fixed things! I don’t know! I know you’re right; he doesn’t deserve to live. Every day I let him live costs more people their lives. I’m not proud of that, I’m  _ ashamed _ of that!” 

Jason stared, but words kept spilling out of Bruce. “—I don’t like what you do, Jason. Yes, because it bothers me personally; but it’s what it does to you that scares me. You’re twenty-two, you shouldn’t have to pay for everyone’s mistakes and failures, let alone mine! Maybe it does need to be done, but I don’t want  _ you _ doing it! I don’t want you to keep paying, over and over and over, for things that you didn’t do and were not your fault! Maybe someone does need to do it, yes! But not you! I don’t want you to lose yourself; I don’t want to lose you again, whether by death or anything else. I wish I could do it for you, but I can’t! You think I didn’t try? I tried to kill the Joker for you; I  _ wanted _ to kill him for you, but the damned bastard wouldn’t stay dead.” Bruce hung his head. “I don’t know if anyone can kill him at this point. I wanted to, Jason. I  _ still _ want to. I wish I could. I wish I could give you what you needed—what you need. But I can’t.” Bruce clenched his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose in a vain attempt to hide the tears. “I’m too damned weak, and I’m sorry. I can’t say sorry enough to you, for...for everything I’ve done—“

Jason was staring in open disbelief, but at that point he clumsily pulled a hand loose from the blanket and reached out, but left his hand hovering awkwardly above his father’s armored shoulder, seemingly at a loss. “B,” he said helplessly. “B. Hey. Dad, hey.” 

That made Bruce look up, and Jason winced. “Look, I uh…” he ducked his head and stared at the floor. “I...you’ve never said any of that before,” he murmured, numbly. “I just...you can’t say one thing to my face in conversation under duress and then say an entire other thing with your behavior, alright? Maybe you’re not trying to, but I hear it loud and clear, and it’s going to keep being a problem. You gonna deny that?”

Bruce scrubbed a hand across his face. “No,” he said hoarsely. 

“Okay. Well.” Jason still looked lost as hell. “There’s gotta be some compromise here.”

Bruce shrugged. “I’m not trying to demand anything, Jason. I just feel bad when you feel like you have to deny yourself non-extreme care just because it’s coming from me. You were shot; you should still be on oxygen and painkillers for a day or so, and I’d feel better if there was someone nearby to watch you in case of complications.”

“Frank’s here,” Jason nodded to the silent figure standing with his arms crossed in the corner, looking a mix of very embarrassed to be hearing this whole debacle and a little choked up from having heard it. 

“Someone who has the surgical equipment to actually do something if something does go wrong,” Bruce said firmly, and Jason closed his mouth decisively. He took a frustrated breath and scrunched up his nose.

“You know what? Fine. I’ll try not to fuck off every time I get jittery.” He slumped back dramatically and weakly threw his hands in the air in surrender. “You win. You happy?”

“Not particularly,” Bruce said mildly, but there was a smile threatening. 

“You gonna drag me back to the Cave?”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

Jason sighed, considering. “Truth be told I kind of feel like shit right now. I had a headache anyway and this yell fest isn’t helping. Think I could stand some good old morphine for a while.” He tossed the blanket back and slowly sat up. “Yeah, what the hell. I’ll come home for a bit,” he said longsufferingly, surrendering. 

Bruce shook his head, the smile unapologetic now. “Thanks, Jay,” he told him softly.

“Whatever, old man.” Jason said flatly. “You can pay me back by reading me The Silmarillion. Including the Appendices. I’ve been meaning to re-read it for months.” 

“I’ll have Alfred reschedule my meetings this week,” Bruce replied easily. He got Jason’s arm around his neck and slowly stood up. Jason rolled his neck stiffly and sighed. He glanced at Frank for a split second, and then looked away. “You coming back?”

“Why the hell not,” Frank echoed Jason’s earlier statement with a shrug. “Your butler makes a mean Ribollita.” 

___

 

Frank wasn’t altogether surprised that evening when he slipped back outside to his van and someone came up behind him. “Jason will be disappointed you left without saying anything.”

Frank shrugged. “Ah, something tells me the kid’s used to that sort of thing,” he said over his shoulder, securing the bins in the back down with bungee cords. “Besides, think I’ve said everything he needs to hear from me. If that’s anything. Probably better for everyone if I skip off and don’t do any more damage to his psyche, you know?”

Bruce shrugged, arms folded casually across his chest. “I don’t exactly have any high ground when it comes to damaged psyches. Or damaging them, for that matter.” His voice dipped. 

Frank rolled his eyes and rolled the van’s door shut. “Will you  _ stop _ with that shit? Damn, you’re as bad as David. So you fucked up. Your kids are alive. You got a chance to make it up to them. I don’t. S’why I live outta this van.” He smacked the door appreciatively 

“You could stop if you wanted to,” Bruce said curiously.

“Yeah. I don’t.” Frank shrugged. “That makes me off my rocker, I don’t particularly give a shit.” He turned and faced Bruce, but didn’t meet his eyes. He shrugged loosely. “Is what it is.”

They stood in silence for a while, while the frogs and crickets filled the night with their croaking and clicking. 

“Sorry for intruding on your city,” Frank finally said, voice gravelly. “I’ll avoid it in the future.”

Bruce shrugged. “For better or worse, you’re a free man, Castle. You go where you need to. Believe it or not, I don’t own Gotham. No one owns her.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of what I figured,” Frank snorted lowly. “She your mistress, rich kid?”

Bruce shrugged one shoulder. “Whatever we are, I’m in it for life.” 

“Can’t argue with that.” Frank dipped his chin.

Another pause. Then Bruce extended his hand. “I wouldn’t call it a pleasure, but I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for, Mr. Castle.”

Frank eyed the offered hand for a moment, then shook it. “For what it’s worth, you’re one hell of an enigma, Mr. Wayne.” 

Bruce quirked a half-smirk, and gave a firm squeeze before releasing the handshake. Frank nodded to him, then went to climb in. Bruce turned away.

“Hey, Wayne?”

Bruce glanced back. “Yes?”

“Do me a favor, will you.” Frank flipped his keys in his fingers. “Look after those kids of yours. Don’t let the time go to waste. Got that?”

Bruce nodded quietly, face solemn. Frank scoffed quietly at himself, raised an arm in farewell, and got into the driver’s seat and shut the door. He flicked the lights on and carefully backed out of the field back towards the road, leaving the black silhouette of Bruce’s thick shape against the rock face like a shadowbox.

Frank pulled back onto the road with a sigh, of relief mixed with something else he couldn’t quite word. It wasn’t too long after sundown, and the roads were swarming with people driving everywhere and nowhere. Seeing cars packed full of families got him to thinking. 

By the time he’d pulled onto the freeway, he’d made up his mind. He wrestled his cell out of his back pocket and scrolled down a very short list of numbers. His thumb only hovered over the call button for a moment before he pressed it and held it to his ear.

She might not even pick up, with how they left things. It was what he wanted, and he almost hoped she was too busy, had moved on like he wanted her to. He tried not to hope she’d answer.

But after two and a half rings, the line clicked, and he heard a shaky intake of air on the other end, waiting.

He swallowed roughly. “Hey, Kid. It’s uh. It’s me.”

A pause. Another wet-sounding breath. “Frank?” She half-whispered tinnily. 

He laughed hoarsely. “Yeah. I uh. I just wanted to uh. Check in on you. See how you were doin. And I know what I said, I just. Thought I’d make sure.”

Unnecessarily, he tacked on, “You doin’ alright?” after another pause.

She laughed shakily, and he swallowed something warm at the sound. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“Oh yeah.” Frank set one hand on the steering wheel and steered his way up the interstate. “Tell me all about it.”

And for the next hour or so, Amy did. 

  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I’m on tumblr: autumnhobbit.tumblr.com


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